No Lie
by Silverblind
Summary: Some are just not meant to be together. -SPOILERS sequence 3- -ONE-SHOT-


**In case you missed the warning in the summary; spoilers for sequence 3.**

* * *

"I did not think I would see you again so soon. "

"And I did not think you would be waiting for me."

"I was not _waiting._"

"So you say."

"So I know."

"And yet, you remained."

Haytham and Ziio looked at each other for a long time, each watching the other for signs of treachery. It was an old game, formed by habit, as both knew the other was not dangerous.

Finally she rose from the fallen tree she was sitting on, and he stepped forward, their lips meeting in a heated kiss. The light of the moon bathed them as they parted, and Ziio took Haytham's strong hand in her small one, her delicate fingers cradling his large palm like the most precious of treasures. They silently entered the slumbering village, avoiding detection from the few scouts as the Mohawk led the man to an isolated, unoccupied longhouse. Pulling him inside, their mouths quickly found each other again as she lay down on the fur-covered ground, clothes slipping from their heated bodies as they became lost in their embrace. They did not speak or whisper, and soon they were laying together, Ziio abandoning for a short moment her stone mask to sigh contentedly as she curled into Haytham's side. His fingers found their way into her hair, and he was surprised to find them out of their usual braids. He decided to relish in the feelings of the thick strands passing between his fingers.

"We should leave."

For a small second he felt her tense against him before she relaxed again. It was a long time before she spoke.

"Where?"

"I do not know. Anywhere."

"Why?"

"Because."

"You know we cannot live together. A white man and a _savage_."

She had spat the words with hatred, but also with sadness. He turned to face her, searching her black eyes for answer he knew he would not find.

"I am confident that you will find your place with me in this new world we are creating… A world of order and peace…"

She scoffed.

"You should know we were not created this way… Quarrel and war run in our veins like the blood they carry… absolute peace is impossible."

"It may indeed be the case, if men are left to their own devices… But with us-"

"Us?"

"Yes… I've wanted to talk to you about this for a long time now. I am part of a group. Not many people know about us today and not many ever will. But we seek to make this world a better place… a place of order and truth… of finality."

She rose suddenly, offering herself shamelessly to his eyes. But the hard look in her eyes compelled him not to let his stare stray to her naked body. Her voice was but a low hiss when she spoke.

"Finality? Finality will be the end of us all. Finality will be end of humankind as we know it. Finality will be the end of me. Finality will be the end of _you_."

He had sat up during her speech, his eyes not leaving hers as they progressively darkened with an ire he did not understand. His breath hitched in his throat when she next spoke:

"I heard Braddock speak about this finality which seems so dear to you. To achieve it, he would not have hesitated to kill anyone who stood in his path. My people. The French. _You._"

He had risen at her last words, now towering above her. He could understand her anger, but could neither share it nor feed it. He had to quell it, and to do this he would have to be more honest than he had been in many years.

"Ziio… my friends and I… Charles Lee, William Johnson, Benjamin Church… and Edward Braddock, before he fell to madness… we are all aiming at the same thing. But we will _not_ follow Braddock's way to achieve our goals. That man was mad and his method against everything we ever stood for. We-"

The sneer on her face made the words catch in his throat. In her eyes was a look of contempt not unlike the one she had graced him with when he had first laid eyes on her, at Silas' camp. He did not know what to make of it.

"This 'we' again." Spat she. "No more hiding: _tell me who you are._"

Haytham knew he shouldn't have. To compromise the Order in such a way could signify banishment, incarceration, or, if his rivals pulled the right strings, even death. But as he stood there, before this woman who looked like a feral goddess as the fire's dying embers bathed her in their last light, he knew he didn't want to lie anymore. And so he began to speak, slowly and so low that even she, in the perfect silence of the night, could barely hear him.

"We have sported many names over the centuries; hospitalers, saraccens, Christians and Muslims. Soldiers, knights and kings, armies, legions. But whatever the name they gave us at the time, whatever land we were in, under masks and helmets and capes and armors we were all the same, and still today we are one. We are the Templars."

They stood looking at each other for a long time before any of them dared to move or speak. Ziio was the first to do so, her features softening with her first words.

"I can see you really believe in what you say. Your objectives are noble, your intentions pure. But…"

Her face hardened again then, and she folded her arms over her chest, her brown skin gleaming like precious metal. And although he knew what was coming, Haytham could not help in this moment but to find her beautiful. Her words only crushed his heart harder as she said them.

"But _Templars _are no friends of mine. Your ideology is good for paper, but it will never come true. War, love and tears are all there is for us. The finality you seek would rob us of our very souls, would make us nothing more than walking corpses. No, Templars are no friends of mine. And if you are one of them, then you are no longer welcome here."

He should have argued, he knew. He should have argued like he always did with someone who did not believe the same thing as he did. Argue, reason and, if need be, strike. But tonight, in the shade of the dying fire, he found he did not want to. Stepping forward he pulled her to him, kissing her lips the only way he knew how: desperately and without restraints. She responded in kind. Before they parted, with her cradled against his chest and him embracing her for what he knew would be the last time, he spoke:

"Then you are no friend of mine, either."

* * *

They dressed in silence, back to back, and when Haytham left the longhouse there was a painful heaviness to his steps. Ziio did not look up, sitting before the now definitely extinguished but still warm fire. She did not look as he turned around. As his mouth opened, as if to say a final goodbye, he thought better of it and stepped into the night before he could speak. It was as dark outside as when he had first entered the longhouse when he mounted his horse, leading it away from the village without a sound. None of them looked back at the other as the once-lover forever parted, knowing that, perhaps, in their own way, the Fates may allow them to find each other again someday.


End file.
